Tag: Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield

Well, there are times you catch an older movie on the cable box when you are flipping around and you find yourself watching the film – that you probably already saw – and see it in a different way… Understanding it better than when you first saw it and perhaps seeing a message in the movie, or something you didn’t see originally when you watched the film.

In this instance, the film was Other People’s Money.

I had two scenes hit home with me in particular. One scene had Anthony Quinn basically summing up the business world, and another scene showed just why Danny Devito’s character is like he is… let me see if I can break it down.

Talking about the DeVito scene first, he has Penelope Ann Miller in his home and is hosting her for business dinner. She happens across a photograph of a cheerleader and DeVito’s character, Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield, starts to explain who the girl was and you get a glimpse at what his character – a brash, arrogant, son of a bitch – has deep down inside him. He talks about being smitten with this girl when he was in high school and how she dated the quarterback of the HS football team. He talked about sending her poetry in an attempt to woo her and how she stayed with the Quarterback. He tells how he would have given her anything and done anything for her, but “All she wanted was a touchdown.”

Lawrence Garfield, being short and overweight and not able to win the girl over with physical prowess, tried with his mind and heart… His mind and heart are strengthened with his money – but it takes ruthlessness to make money. Larry’s no idiot, and he has done what he could to educate himself further not only in the business sense but about the finer things in life. As I said, what he couldn’t achieve with his physical prowess he tried to with his mind and heart. Maybe that’s why I can identify with him so well: because I’ve walked a mile in those shoes before and been turned away or flat out turned down.

Meanwhile, back to the second thing that hit home with me – Anthony Quinn, speaking in front of a stock-holders meeting near the end of the film. He spoke of the business world and things that seem commonplace now in business. Maybe that was the way it was then, but I can’t remember…

Nor can I remember what he was saying now, a few hours after I watched the film… Hopefully I can get some of these quotes sometime in the near future.